Stripped Down to the Bone
by DreamingAngelWolf
Summary: Clint and Natasha receive an unexpected visitor, and in the aftermath of his arrival confessions are made, harsh words exchanged, and deep fears brought to light. (Alternate Universe, warnings inside.)


*Inspired by 'Romeo Is Bleeding' by DevilDoll on Archive of Our Own.*

**AN: **So I had major Bucky feels. Peculiar Bucky feels, but strong enough that I couldn't let them sit and had to get them off my chest. Warnings for implied childhood sexual abuse/drug use/dubious consent, though nothing particularly explicit.

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Stripped Down to the Bone

It was four in the morning when the knocking started, heavy, insistent and erratic, and Clint couldn't really think of anyone he knew who'd do such a thing at this ungodly hour of the morning, and in the middle of the week, too. His question was answered when he peered through the peep hole, taking in the slumped figure and thick, tangled brown hair. He was hit simultaneously with strong feelings of relief and irritation, and when he couldn't decide which won out he settled for the uncomfortable mixture of both. As the sluggish knocking continued, Clint turned back to apartment. "Nat," he called softly, "it's Bucky."

It only took a few moments for Natasha to open the door to her room and step out, wearing a modest t-shirt and sweatpants, vibrant hair held in a sloppy bun at the back of her head. She stood by the sofa, arms folded, and Clint opened the door. He only just managed to stick an arm out in time to catch the falling body.

"I got you," he said, a strangled half-laugh leaving Bucky's lips as he hauled him inside and upright.

"Hey asshole," Bucky said, grinning. "Thought I'd drop by." He wavered as he dissolved into giggles, and Clint reached out to steady him again.

"Okay, we're going to introduce you to the couch now, Bucky.

"What for?" he mumbled, allowing himself to be guided over. Natasha watched him like an eagle, brow tight in concern. He fell onto it bonelessly and with a grimace, attempting to get comfortable as Natasha and Clint took their positions either side of him.

"Where've you been, Bucky?" Clint asked.

"With a client."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "For six days?"

"Yes." Bucky blinked, then looked at her. "Wait, what?"

"Six days, Buck," Clint repeated. "You've been gone six days. We were getting worried."

"I had my phone…"

"Yeah well it must be dead, 'cause you never answered our texts or calls. I hit voicemail every time."

"Where were you?" Natasha asked again, and after giving her a long look Bucky sighed deeply.

"He had this basement apartment," he began, head tipped back and eyes closed. "All open-plan, kinda lush. Great acoustics…" Grinning at a memory, he took a while to pick up his train of thoughts. "Uh, so we had sex, and I was getting ready to leave when he said he'd pay extra if I stayed. I thought: fuck it. Why not? 'Cept next morning he was gone, and the friggin' door was locked. He apologised when he got back, said he'd make it up to me with some pot. Best. Damn. Pot. Ever. Think I musta… lost track of time or something. Said I could have as much as I wanted, so when we weren't fucking I was doing just that. Door was always locked, so what else could I do?"

Clint frowned. "Are you high now?"

With a snort, he rolled his head to the right to look at him. "Not on pot," he said as though Clint was stupid for asking such a question.

"How did you get out?" Natasha pressed.

Bucky sniffed. "What?"

"From the basement – how did you leave if the door was locked?"

He chuckled, eyes slipping closed again. "Pretended to be passed out, and he didn't lock it. Waited a few hours – y'know, to take a few things he owed me – then left. Felt like shit, so I found some coke, and then I hurt my hand, so I came to you guys." At this point he lifted up his left hand, letting them both see for the first time the long, filthy red gash on his palm.

"Christ," Clint breathed as Natasha left to get their first aid kit. He moved Bucky's hand closer so he could inspect it. "How the hell'd you do this?"

"Dunno," Bucky sighed, and Clint felt the fingers of his other hand playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. "Hurts like an angry bitch though." Clint batted his hand away, shooting him a stern look. Bucky just grinned again, only turning away when Natasha sat back down and pulled his hand in her direction.

"This might hurt," she warned.

"Already does." The expression on his face changed when Natasha started wiping at the cut, brow furrowed in displeasure, and in the momentary silence Clint gave his friend a proper look-over. Dishevelled was an understatement as far as Bucky's current appearance was concerned – his hair was a mess, but not in the carefully styled way he prided himself on so often, and it looked too dark against his pale skin; bruised smudges under his eyes and light stubble on his jaw gave him a haunted look, and his t-shirt and jeans were rumpled and dirty and blood-streaked. It was also the first time Clint really noticed how thin Bucky was looking these days.

"When was the last time you ate, Buck?" he asked gently.

Bucky turned to look at him jerkily, eyes now bloodshot and heavy-lidded. He huffed a laugh, lips stretching into a humourless smile. "I had chips."

"When?"

"Today."

"And before that?"

The next look Bucky threw at him was devoid of any kind of humour. "The fuck do you care?" he snapped.

"Clint's only looking out for you," Natasha said, voice low and warm to placate him. She had moved on to the bandage, wrapping it slowly and carefully around his hand. "We want to make sure you're taking care of yourself."

"'Cause if we don't, who will?" Clint added with a smile, making his tone light and jokey.

Bucky nodded in understanding, eyes glazed as they stared at nothing. "Think I had a burger," he said eventually, "perhaps a couple of days ago."

Clint accepted that as the most detail he was getting. "You want a drink?"

"… Sure."

As Clint left to fix up a glass of water, Natasha pinned the bandage in place, giving it a last check before lifting her gaze to meet Bucky's. "Who was he?"

Bucky pulled a face. "Now? Really?"

"Your memory won't improve overnight."

"How do you know?"

"Sobriety doesn't guarantee memories."

He glared at her for a second before licking his lips and running his free hand through his hair. "Vasily. He was… Russian or something."

"How did he treat you?"

Blowing out a breath, he considered it for a moment. "He wasn't bad actually," he said. "I mean, he wanted to try a lot of weird things, but fuck me, the things he could do with his –"

"I'm not sure she was asking about how good he was in bed," Clint commented, setting down a glass of water on the coffee table next to the first aid kit.

"You weren't?" Bucky asked her, and she shook her head. "Oh. Well he gave me money, and pot, and… a burger… Though it would've been nice if the douchebag had let me go when I wanted."

Clint shook his head. "Where on earth did you find this one?"

"The corner, where else?" he sneered.

Natasha frowned. "Bucky –"

"What?" he snapped suddenly. "So I stayed with a guy a little longer than usual, big fucking deal! You don't think I know how to take care of myself? That I can't handle assholes like him?"

"More that you shouldn't have to," Clint chipped in from behind, careful to keep his voice neutral.

Bucky shook his head. "This isn't about – it's not should or shouldn't, Clint," he said. "I need that money!"

"So get a job!" Natasha fired back, eyes ablaze.

"I have a job!"

"A proper job – one that doesn't demean who you are and allow people to treat you like some kind of disposable possession."

"What, like you managed to get one?" Bucky scoffed. "Right. You know the only reason you got a 'proper' job, Natasha? So you could run away from your mistakes, bury them underneath a fucking pay slip, or move on, or whatever, and – and I bet that if you'd actually enjoyed those losers you got off with, you'd still be working the streets now, same as me!"

Silence hit everyone like a brick. Clint stared between Bucky and Natasha, the latter of whom had gone very, very still, waiting for something to happen. It only took a couple of seconds for Bucky's drugged-up brain to catch up with his tongue, and if not for their given situation it might have been funny to watch his jaw go slack and his eyes wide with horror. Natasha's face was unreadable, but her voice, when she spoke, was as calm as it was when he first fell in through their door. "You can take Clint's room tonight," she told him, "and he'll sleep on the couch. You can clean up, get sober, get some decent food inside you, but tomorrow you start making an effort at picking yourself up. You look for a real job, one that earns you respectable money and keeps your dignity intact, and you start cutting back on the drugs and the drink and the sex and whatever other substances or activities you engage in that ruin your body; and if you need help you can ask us, and while we won't do things for you we will certainly offer our assistance – because your life is worth so much more than what it is now, and we believe that even if you don't."

Bucky shifted in his seat, pain and confusion wrought all over his features, all the fight gone out of him. "Natasha –"

She stood up, arms crossing over her chest, head turned away. "Goodnight James."

Clint saw Bucky wince, and knew with grim satisfaction that the message had gotten through. "Alright," he murmured gently, "let's get you to bed." Bucky offered no resistance as Clint helped him off the couch, and kept his head down as they passed Natasha's still figure. Her hand darted out to catch Clint's arm, and he ushered Bucky on his way before turning to her. "You okay?"

She swallowed. "You'll make sure he's alright?"

"Yeah, you know I will. Thanks for volunteering me for that, by the way."

A tiny sigh escaped her. "Sorry."

"No, don't be." He took hold of her shoulders. "He didn't mean all that. We both know the streets were never your choice. He's high, remember?"

"Was high, I think." Natasha closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again to look directly into his he couldn't see any of the barely-concealed hurt they'd held seconds ago. "Are you alright to stay here tomorrow? I can put in a word for you at work. Sam won't mind."

"If that's what you want." She nodded, and Clint pulled her close. "I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Night, Clint."

When he entered his room, Clint was a little surprised to find Bucky sat on his bed in the dark, and flicked the light on without thinking. His friend flinched at the sudden brightness so he turned it back off, going for the side lamp instead and only feeling a little bad for spoiling whatever moment he had interrupted (although it may have been for the better). He slowly moved until he was sat next to him, noting how Bucky stared at his trembling hands, eyes redder than when he'd arrived. "I screwed up," he said eventually, voice quiet and subdued.

Unsure of what to say, Clint nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Hopefully for the last time."

Bucky sniffed. "Will she ever forgive me?"

He shrugged. "If you start treating yourself better, then yeah, I think she will."

Chapped lips twisted for a few moments, struggling to settle on words that gave voice to the mess of thoughts so clearly running through his mind. "I don't think I can get a job," he said eventually.

"Bullshit," Clint replied, without hesitation.

"No, it's not." Bucky turned his head towards him, brow creased, tears pooling in his eyes. "How can I do anything else after this is all I've known?"

Pressing a hand against the side of Bucky's neck, Clint gave him a long, hard look. "James Buchanan Barnes – I've known you since we were scraps of flesh and bone kicking cans down the street when there was nothing else to do, and I can tell you that you have a lot working in your favour: your charisma, your stubbornness, your determination, and your ability to adapt, to name a few. I have no doubt, and neither does Natasha, that you will be able to find a better job, perhaps even one you'll enjoy. And if you need to learn a new skill, then I know you – you'll learn it. Because that's who you are. You can find a job, Bucky."

A tear slipped down the inside of Bucky's nose, and he shook his head minutely. "I can't," he whispered.

Clint could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen Bucky cry, but it was the first instance that stuck out in his mind; they'd been seven years old, and he had gone round to Bucky's to see if he would come out and play. Bucky's father had said he wasn't feeling well, so Clint offered to keep him company like Barney sometimes did for him. He'd found Bucky in his room, curled in on himself under his bed covers, and when he'd seen him come in Bucky had burst into tears. Clint stayed though, and Bucky only dragged himself out of his bed when his father demanded he come downstairs for lunch. The moment was made significant only ten years later, the second time Clint saw Bucky cry, when he explained what his father had done to him the previous night all those years ago, and many subsequent nights afterwards until he'd run away. The third was when he learnt his sister had died, beaten to death by the same man, and the fourth was after his first boyfriend had callously revealed he was just in it for the sex.

Tonight took the total up to five. With Bucky's head in his lap, Clint running his fingers through his hair like he did when they were seven (he liked it when his mother did it to him – he figured it would help Bucky. It did), the thought that maybe that number was actually greater than Clint knew troubled him.

"Sometimes I think this is all his fault," Bucky said without warning, voice raw-sounding and low.

"Whose?" Either he was referring to his father, or that bastard Aleksander. It turned out to be the former. "Ah. He was a colossal shithead," he agreed.

"That's not exactly what I meant," Bucky mumbled, but before Clint could ask for clarification he twisted so he was looking up at him. "I keep wondering what woulda happened to Rebecca if I stayed," he admitted, "and what happened because I didn't."

"You shouldn't be worrying about that, Buck."

"But what if –"

"No. No more, Bucky. You need sleep."

He sat up, head bent low, uninjured hand tracing patterns on the duvet. "I don't want to."

"Why not?"

Clint had to wait for Bucky's answer. "Not sure I know how to sleep on my own anymore," he confessed, and gently pushed the ends of his fingers between Clint's. It was one of the only times Clint let him get away with such intimacy, because as clear as he'd made it that they would never be more than friends, sometimes Bucky needed to realise he was loved, even just platonically. The massive hint, though, was another matter.

"Yeah you can. Just sing a few songs in your head – your body'll do the rest." Clint was tired himself – he had no doubts about falling asleep, be that on the couch or in a bed on his own.

Bucky snorted. "Will it?"

With a sigh, Clint disentangled their fingers. "It will. Just try. I have some old clothes you can change into if you want."

Later, out on the couch, Clint dragged a hand down his face and started his fourth round of 'One-Hundred Green Bottles', distantly praying that Bucky wasn't having the same trouble as him. Then again, if he had to sacrifice his own need to sleep so that his friend could have one peaceful night, he'd do it in a heartbeat.

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**AN: **I hate that I love putting characters through the emotional wringer. -_- Title came from the song 'Stripped' by Shiny Toy Guns, which I had in my head at the time of inspiration. And go kudos DevilDoll for inadvertently sparking this idea in the first place :-)


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